“What’s this?” she asked, but reached for the envelope and pulled the papers out of it before he responded.
“A proposition, Sorcha.”
She glanced up at him and watched as he moved back to his seat and sat down.
She looked back down at the paperwork, scanned the first page, and felt her heart drop to her stomach. “A proposition.” She stated it to herself. “This is a contract.” She stared at him again, offended, slightly appalled, but most of all curiously aroused as a few of the words in the contract jumped out at her.
“It is.” He leaned forward, clasped his hands on the table in front of him, and looked her dead in the eye. “My image tends to get tarnished because some of my past sexual partners go to the media, thinking they are somehow hurting me.”
She swallowed, and knew what he was talking about. Sorcha had seen the news, read the tabloids about some of the women he had screwed, a few of them coming forward because they had been scorned. Every woman wanted to be with Rian Hartford. They wanted to know what it was like to have him over them, thrusting into them, and showing them that the dominance he had was also what he used in the bedroom. Sorcha included. She wasn’t into BDSM, but didn’t know if that was what he was implying with this contract. But what she did want to try, what she’d even thought about on a few occasions, was how powerful he truly was behind the exterior he presented.
But what always turned her off was the fact that Rian was an asshole, a big-time douche-bag at times, and because of that she had put all desires she had to the back of her mind. She wasn’t immune to his charms, to the way he looked, or the fact that he screamed sex appeal. But she was smart and refused to be another one of his slutty office romances.
“But I want you, Sorcha.” He stared at her so deeply that she tightened her hold on the papers.
Could he hear her heart beating, see it in her neck? She felt like her heart would burst right through her chest. “You want me?” Had she said that out loud, or just thought it?
It took him a moment to answer. “Yes. I want you really fucking badly, in fact.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
She had never heard him swear. Rian was always so in control that cursing almost seemed like a waste of time for him, or at least that was what she had assumed given the way he acted and held himself. Looking over the contract, she took note of the key points. It was only two pages, but God, it seemed like there was so much more to it than that.
“I don’t understand any of this.” Of course she could read, got the basics of it all, but her mind felt like mush, and she felt disconnected from everything. When she had felt like something was off, she certainly had never entertained this idea.
“I am making the proposition that you be mine for the length of one week,” he said calmly, with conviction and almost a touch of excitement in his voice. “During that time you will be mine, Sorcha Case. You will live in my home, eat my food, and be by my side during any functions that I have to attend in a formal and informal sense.” The silence stretched between them after he spoke, but Sorcha couldn’t find it in her to speak, let alone think about what he was actually saying. “You will be mine in any way I see fit, Sorcha, sexually, intellectually, and socially.” He leaned forward an inch. “In any. Way. I. See. Fit.” He let those words hang between them, and then slowly leaned back, placed his arm over the back of the chair again, and took on the same position as he had when she first entered his office. “And in return you will be paid a substantial amount of money since the time spent with me will have you away from your job.”
She glanced down at the bottom of the last page, and swallowed her shock. A five-figure amount stared back at her, and the initial things that went through her mind were that she could pay all of her bills. But she shook her head, not knowing what to say to this exactly. The contract was very widespread, blanket even. What Rian had just told her was exactly what was written in front of her. No details, no explanation of anything. “I’m not a prostitute.” Her anger rose, and her self-preservation took a front seat.
“I never once claimed you were, and that isn’t what I want from you, not only at least.” He wasn’t throwing any emotion, and that angered her even more.